Chamber Chats | Navigating Business Law & Intellectual Property in Today’s Market

In this episode of Chamber Chats, we’re joined by Jeanne Seewald, Partner at Hahn Loeser & Parks, to discuss the legal issues business owners often overlook—and why understanding business law and intellectual property is critical in today’s evolving marketplace.

Jeanne focuses her practice on intellectual property and business law, working with everyone from startups and entrepreneurs to established companies navigating growth, transactions, and change.

 In this episode, we explore:

• Common legal issues business owners should proactively address 
• The differences between business law and intellectual property law 
• Why Naples continues to be a strong environment for business growth 
• The distinction between copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets 
• How businesses can protect themselves while scaling and evolving 

Whether you’re launching a new venture, growing an existing company, or simply interested in understanding the legal side of business, this episode offers practical insight and expert perspective from one of Southwest Florida’s leading attorneys.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:11

In this episode of Chamber Chats, we're joined by Jeannie Seawall with Han Lozier in Parks. Jeannie will walk us through all kinds of law from intellectual property to business practices, helping businesses across our community avoid pitfalls and building the strongest organizations possible. We'll also talk about Jeannie's personal involvement and a lot of our community activities and nonprofits. Jeannie, welcome to Chamber Chats.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

I look forward to diving in and learning a little bit more about you and your organization. So what drew you to the practice of law?

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Well, when I went to college, I was a business and economics major, and I tried to decide if I wanted to go to law school at that time, but I decided to go the accounting route. So I was a CPA for about seven years before I decided to go back to law school. And what I didn't enjoy about practicing as a CPA was just that it was really the same kind of work every day. But I definitely got what I wanted with practicing law because every day is different. I never know when a client's going to call with a new project or a new client's going to call with something really interesting to work on. So I really enjoy that every day is different. Yeah, that really is. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Well, good. And then you're with the firm Han Lojure and Parks. Tell me a little bit about your firm and what type of law you practice.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Of course. Well, so Han Lojure is based in Cleveland, Ohio. We have offices in Columbus, Ohio, Chicago, San Diego, and four offices in Florida. So Naples, Fort Myers, and our two newest offices, which we just added in the last three or four weeks, was Tampa and Sarasota. So we practice this in all areas of the law, including everything except domestic relations type work, divorce, and criminal. And my practice focuses on business law and specifically intellectual property. So I help people with patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets, and then also help people buy and sell businesses.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Wonderful. Well, that type of work has to be fascinating. And while Naples is known for its beautiful, you know, postcard ability and beaches, Naples means business, right? We've got a ton of businesses here. So tell me about why you enjoy doing the type of work you do with such a booming business environment here in Naples.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Yeah. Well, you're absolutely right. Well, first of all, Naples is such a beautiful place to live, but it's really been wonderful to practice law here. I um next month I will have been here 27 years. Wow. And I've seen Naples grow so much. But what I really enjoy about being in Naples is that, first of all, I work with a large firm. We have about 150 attorneys. So they provide a lot of back office kinds of things, such as marketing and IT, accounting services. So that's very nice. But I get to work in a small office. We only have about 15 attorneys. So I really know everyone well, their spouses, their kids. So that's really nice. But what's really wonderful about practicing law here is that I get to meet people with such interesting backgrounds. I mean, people from all, as you know, from all over the world that have done some amazing things in their career. But sometimes I meet them from a standpoint of they're looking for their next big adventure, or so I help them set up new businesses, or sometimes they're looking to get out of a current business. So I work a lot with people who live in Naples that are looking to sell a business in another state.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Oh, okay. Are you seeing that a lot in the family, like family practice space? Because I understand, or excuse me, family-owned business space. Yes, right.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Absolutely. So people that maybe they don't have children that want to work in the business. And so they've come down here and sort of tested the waters, are they interested in moving full-time, and then they decide to make that decision and sell their businesses somewhere else.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

Okay. And then help me understand because you talked a little bit about business law and intellectual property. Help me understand the differences between those two.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Sure. So business intellectual property is really sort of a subset of business law. So business law really talks about any kind of laws relating to business. So when I think of business law, I think of the kinds of things I do, such as help people set up uh entities to run new businesses, to do contract drafting and review, to helping people buy and sell businesses. Intellectual property, on the other hand, covers things like copyright, trademark, patents, and trade secrets. So it helps people protect the kind of creative things that happen in their business. And what's the difference between copyright protection and trademarks? Yeah, and people ask that question all the time. Um, but and so let me explain, but I'll also tell you a little bit about patents and trade secrets because those are the four areas of intellectual property. So trademarks help people protect their brands, the way that they portray their products and services to the world. So things like Apple, Google, Coca-Cola, and I'm a big Taylor Swift fan, mainly because I really appreciate all the effort she's taken to protect all of her trademarks. So things like Life of a Showgirl, her new album, Shake It Off, some of her songs, she has a portfolio of over a hundred trademarks. So those are the kind of things that fall under trademarks. Different is copyright. Copyright protects creative works. So things like paintings and uh recipes, even uh books. And so, kind of keeping with the Taylor Swift theme, um, she protects her written words and then also the music she's written. And there's been a lot in the news about the fact that she re-recorded some of her albums in the last few days.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

Taylor's version. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

And the reason she was able to do that is because early on she kept the copyright to the words and the music, and her record label owned the sound recordings of the album. So she could take those, the songs and the music and re-record them and compete with her old record label. I see. So patents, though, um protect ideas, whereas copyright protects the way ideas are put into a tangible form, like books and songs. Patents protect actual ideas, so things like inventions. So when you think up a new invention, it would protect that. And it's anything from something as simple as a post-it note, which is protected by patent, or a complex machinery or software. Um, and with patents, it's different than copyright because with copyright, you have to have something you've put in a tangible form. With patents, an idea can be patented and never actually put into effect. So there may never be a product produced, there may it may never be used, but you can still own a patent on that idea. Okay. And then trade secrets protect things that we call proprietary information, a confidential information of a company. And as long as you take certain steps to keep those things secret, they're protected by trade secret law.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

Okay, that makes a lot of sense. So it sounds like really your ideal client could be nearly any business. Any business.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

And um, you know, I work with lots of businesses that don't have intellectual property but or don't think they have intellectual property, but almost every business does. And that's one of the things that I see businesses, startups particularly make mistakes along the way is that they know they should get insurance for their hard assets. Obviously, they've got to protect those, but they don't think about protecting their soft assets like their copyrights and trademarks. And that can be a big mistake because it can be costly on down the road.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

So, what are some other things in that category, right? Business owners may not realize these are the types of things they should be seeking protections for. Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Well, first of all, just from a uh business standpoint, how to structure their business to obtain the best tax consequences because there are different structures, LLCs, S-corps, C Corps, that can have um uh certain benefits depending on the kind of company that you are. So seeking that kind of advice before you set up your business is really important. But then on the intellectual property side, just knowing that you should protect those things. I've seen so many businesses that uh come up with what they think is a great name and they spend money and they promote their brand, and maybe they find out a few years down the road that someone else was using that word or that logo first and they have to stop, and it can be a very expensive proposition for them, whereas if they had just spent, you know, a fraction of that amount on the front end to protect their intellectual property, they would have been better off.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

Wonderful. Well, I know that you've been incredibly helpful with our organization. You've been serving with the chamber board for a very long time. Before we dive into that, tell us a little bit about your community involvement outside of the work we get the chance to do together.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Yeah, so I've worked with a lot of organizations, but particularly the chamber, but also the Collier County Bar Association. So I worked with them for probably 10 or 12 years and went through the steps to become the president of the Collier County Bar and the president of the Collier County Bar Foundation. And I really enjoyed that work because it allowed me to just meet all kinds of attorneys around this area. And it was also a good place for business development because there aren't many attorneys in this part of the state that do the kind of intellectual property I work. So I do get a lot of referrals from other attorneys.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

Oh, that's nice. Well, and I and you've been serving the chamber for so long for so well, and we're so grateful. Call you our bylaw queen, right? You love your bylaws.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Uh yes, as she knows. I have this uh I love bylaws cup that was given to me by someone on the Leadership Call Your Foundation board when I did a bylaws refresh project for them. Shout out to Sonia Diaz. Um I do love bylaws, and for some reason, when I say that, people laugh.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

It's not everyone's favorite thing, and that's why we're so grateful for you. Talk to us a little bit about the Leadership Call Your Foundation, the chamber, your experience with our organization, and why you think it's beneficial both for your business and for the community at large.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Of course. So um, well, first with Leadership Call Your Foundation. I went through the program in 2004, the class of 2004, like none before. Uh, and it was a great experience. I'd been here six years when I did that, and I thought I knew a lot about the county in those six years, but of course I found out that there were so many things I didn't know. And I guess the best part about Leadership Collie Foundation, which most people say is just the relationships that you make there. Um, I made so many friendships. I think our class was around uh 40 people. And, you know, over the past 20 years, I would say over half of the class has become a client of mine in some way, either individually or through the businesses where they work or the businesses they own. So it's just all around, you know, friendships and um business relationships that I've created have been wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Oh, that's excellent.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

And then talk to me about the chamber side of your work as well. Yeah, so I've been involved with the chamber, like you said, quite a few years. I think I'm the longest serving board member at this point in time. And so as long as you guys have a need for my services, I'm happy to do it. But it's been a really great journey. And again, I've just met, you know, had an opportunity to meet people in industries that I probably wouldn't have had a connection or come across in another way other than through the chamber. And I'm the vice chair of the governance committee on the chamber, and I often, in working with bylaws projects, have had uh members of the board come up and ask me questions about their bylaws, and sometimes that turns into work. So it's really nice when you can, you know, care about an organization, have a chance to work in it, but also it turns into friendships and and business.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Wonderful. Well, Jeannie, I've so enjoyed getting to know more about you, getting to more about know more about Han, Losier, and Parks. Is there anything we haven't discussed today that you want to make sure our viewers know about you or your practice?

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Um, I don't think so, except I just want to say that I think that the chamber has so many great people that are out there doing great work in the community, you, others on your staff. And so it's really, I feel fortunate to get a chance to work with the chamber and contribute in some small way because it's really given so much back to me.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

Well, thank you for sharing that. We've got a great team, and a huge part of how we're able to do what we do is the great board members like you that are so willing to give both to our organization and the broader community. So thanks for sitting down. It was great to learn more about your business. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

If you or your organization have a story to highlight, reach out to the Greater Naples Chamber. We'd love to continue the conversation. We'll see you next time on Chamber Chats.